As it does in Luke, Matthew’s account the feeding of the 5,000 follows after Herod speculating that Jesus is John come back to life, but Matthew used this opportunity to tell the gruesome story of John’s death. Luke moved quickly from John’s death, to tell of the disciples’ successful mission, whereas Matthew tell us that [...]
Browsing Posts tagged Matthew
This chapter is a big sack of parables, and we’ve already seen that a parable is in essence a comparison, where light is thrown on something by talking about something else, better known or more clear or vivid. The parable of the the sower is particularly complicated and developed, with lots of details but still [...]
Prayer and Parables This section is a mix of teaching and parables. There is so much to talk about, so I’ll focus on how Jesus teaches: like a true Jew! in parables 6:5-8 sounds just like the prophets: true religion is not about what other people think of us, but Jusus is even more deeply [...]
This week’s readings contain a sample of Jesus teachings. In reading them we will notice two things particularly that will help us better understand: (a) Jesus is a prophet: so the rules we learnt for reading Old Testament prophets will help us understand Jesus. These rules were: Prophets spoke to a context: knowing the who, [...]
Matthew has introduced Jesus, giving his genealogy, linking him to the story of God’s chosen people in particular to David the great king (messiah) and Abraham the ancestor (patriarch) whom God first chose and blessed to be the blessing of the rest of humanity, and four really interesting women. He has told the birth, with [...]
What is a “Gospel”? Not a collection of sayings, because they tell more stories, but not a biography, they almost miss out most of Jesus’ life! We’ll get an idea what Gospels really are by looking at how each Gospel concludes (Matt 28:17-20; Mark 16:15-20; Luke 24:51-53; John 20:30-31). Then, the four gospels begin so [...]
We look at how Jesus reads other Bible passages (still in Matthew 5) to begin confirming the hypothesis that to read Scripture with Jesus is to make it so extreme that rules (casuistic law) become goals (apodictic command). Before you get to the next podcast it would be a good idea to listen to “What [...]
In this I’ll tell you how I think Jesus offers the key to how we should understand the casuistic laws of the Old Testament. It’s simple, but as I’ll go on to show in later ‘casts profound. The clue is found in a passage we’ve looked at before (Matt 5) especially in Matt 5:17-22. (See [...]
The distinction between casuistic and apodictic formulations of “legal” material in the Bible, seems like a prime example of scholarship which has lost touch with the needs of real Bible readers. Not least the abstruse technical language puts people off. Yet this distinction has deeply theological consequences, and Jesus seems to “fulfill” OT law (at [...]
More than 5 minutes, so not a podcast for here, but if you want to listen to something longer (like 30 mins plus question time) I’ve posted this morning’s sermon to my blog: Matthew 5:17ff. : How to Read the Old Testament. Taking the “difficult” passage from the sermon on the mount and asking what [...]
